SHELBY – A crooked “Community Watch” sign greets visitors near one entrance to the neighborhood on the southwest side of the city.

A boy pushes a plastic toy car through a parking lot and runs inside an apartment.

Red and white, a sign on one apartment building reads “Quiet time.”

But for most in town, this neighborhood, formerly Ramblewood Apartments and now Parkside Villas, has been known as anything but quiet in the past decade. And news in the past week of two violent crimes in the neighborhood has refocused the spotlight on the community, its troubles and efforts to curb those past problems.

“If you go back years and just follow that Ramblewood saga as it comes through, it’s not been a pleasant story,” said Shelby Police Chief Jeff Ledford. “There’s been shootings and murders and a lot of crime down there.”

In the past 15 years, one in every nine Shelby murders has happened in the part of the city still known to many as “Ramblewood.”

One in every 100 service calls to city police have been for Ramblewood.

The neighborhood’s crime rate and stigma led Ramblewood critics to lobby in 2007 and 2008 for plans to tear down the neighborhood.

But that never happened and, instead, numerous groups worked to improve the neighborhood – through police assistance, community aid and other help.

The next year, in June 2009, a woman was killed, a man was shot and killed by police and a police officer was injured during a standoff at nearby Shannonhouse Street.

And in January 2012, a stabbing brought police back to the neighborhood, according to previous Star reports.

‘People who don’t live there’

In the 18 months since, Parkside Villas had been mostly quiet, police say, until home invasion and shooting incidents in the past month.

On a morning this past week, the hush of tree branches was the only sound in the neighborhood.

“There and in south Shelby, Putnam Street and Shannonhouse, we’ve seen a lot of progress for those people to take their communities back,” Ledford said. “The shooting down there (July 12) re-energizes that effort. What do we do to help? There’s good people living down there. Recently, we’ve noticed the problems in Ramblewood have been with people who don’t live there.”

The July 12 shooting left a Bessemer City woman dead and a Shelby man in jail on charges related to the incident. The district attorney's office later ruled the killing self defense.

“Neither of those people lived here,” said Parkside Villas manager Ginger Teseniar. “They were visiting a tenant. We took eviction papers out on that tenant (Monday). We won’t stand for it.”

In another recent crime in the neighborhood, a Mooresboro man was charged with entering an apartment armed with a shotgun along with other yet-to-be-charged suspects and stealing more than $1,700.

Calls to Parkside Villas’ owner were not returned.

“We have good people here,” Teseniar said. “We’re trying to get this place cleaned up. We’re trying to make it nice for our people to live. The problem has been with people from other places coming in.”

Teseniar said about 30 families currently live in Parkside Villas. She said management has stepped up its criminal records checks on potential tenants.

“You have to have a certain score to get in,” Teseniar said. “Because of that, we don’t have a lot of tenants right now.”

‘You have people trying to help’

The recent home invasion and shooting incidents created conversation among Shelby police at the department’s most recent meeting on crime statistics, Ledford said.

“It got us talking about how (Parkside) showed up on the map again this month,” he said. “We pose the question to our staff: What’s changed? We’re trying to plug in and determine how best we can help. The first thing we do is make sure we keep the relationship and communication going with them.”

Ledford said some groups have visited Parkside Villas from outside the community to help provide support.

“There’s a church group coming from out of town and doing Bible studies down there,” he said. “You have people trying to help, and we’ll keep trying to help. And their vested interest is not the place; their vested interest is the people.”

Reach Matthew Tessnear at 704-669-3331, at mtessnear@shelbystar.com or on Twitter @MatthewTessnear.

What are the crimes?

Here’s a look at the numbers on reported incidents in Shelby from Jan. 1, 1999, to July 15, 2013.

Citywide Ramblewood/Parkside

Calls for service 598,943 7,321

Murders 56 5

Aggravated assault 1,570 32

Shots fired 5,649 419

Death investigation 327 1

Source: Shelby Police Department

What have police done to help?

* The first step has always been communication with management, and to find out who’s living there and make them comfortable with police, said Shelby Chief Jeff Ledford.

* “We have put officers down there sporadically working Ramblewood,” Ledford said. “That was their assignment. It worked pretty well. We were able to establish relationships in that community, and it stayed pretty quiet for a while.”

* Another key is keeping an eye on parts that aren’t occupied, Ledford said.

“It is very open and accessible,” he said.

* Police have also worked with other community groups for programs for the neighborhood’s residents.

Source: Shelby Police Department

What’s happening in the Parkside Villas/Ramblewood neighorhood?

* Owners are currently remodeling the insides of some units.

* About 30 families live there now, with 100 total units. But some of the neighborhood’s buildings are boarded up.

* Current management conducts criminal records checks.

* Management surveys the property through surveillance cameras and working with police for officer visits at night.

Source: Parkside Villas manager Ginger Teseniar

Readers respond

The Star asked its Facebook fans: What should be done to improve the Parkside Villas/former Ramblewood Apartments neighborhood? Here's a sample of the response. Want to join the conversation? "Like" The Shelby Star on Facebook.

" Ramblewood would be a good start for improvement, but there are a lot of neighborhoods in this county that need attention."

Curtis Allen

"Our church does an outreach there on Thursday nights...Maybe if more community churches reached out, we could turn it around together. Just like the little girl and the starfish, it all starts with one."